K-State unable to break No. 1 Baylor’s winning streak

After a full Bramlage Coliseum watched the K-State men's basketball team defeat Texas A&M on Saturday afternoon, Bramlage once again filled up, this time the crowd to support the K-State women's basketball team as they took on No. 1 Baylor for the second time this season.

Unfortunately for the sold-out crowd, the outcome of the game turned out to be a disappointment for the Wildcats. With a final score of 70-41, K-State once again fell to the Baylor Bears, and the Bears left Bramlage Coliseum continuing their perfect season.

While Baylor stepped out on the floor confident and assuming their 23rd win of the season, K-State opened the games as if they had other plans. During the opening 15 minutes, the Wildcats proved they could hang with the No. 1 team in the nation.

While Baylor's Brittney Griner won the tipoff and was the first to put points on the board, Jalana Childs, K-State's senior forward, was quick to react and quickly put up 2 points for the Wildcats.

After a missed shot from Baylor and a K-State rebound, the Wildcats turned around and senior guard Tasha Dickey put away a 3-pointer, giving the Wildcats the lead.

K-State held the lead well into the first half and it continued to grow as they went up as many as 6 points on the Bears.

"We were active," said K-State head coach Deb Patterson about the first half. "I was extremely pleased with our first 13 minutes of that game. I thought, ‘you know, we're competing, we're bringing to the floor the energy.'"

While K-State was playing tough, it was not enough to contain the Bears, and with 5:45 left to play in the first half, Baylor stole the lead, a lead which they had not seen since the opening minute of the game.

"I think we just had players check out mentally," Patterson said, "and once that happens, we're toast, it just gets ugly."

Baylor went on to close the half 33-24, and the K-State team that opened the first half playing with confidence came out after halftime and looked like a completely different team.

"Early in the second half I felt as though when they got some quick, relatively easy baskets, on our defensive end of the floor, we sort of dropped our shoulders and got soft on the offensive end," Patterson said. "The last five, six minutes of the first half we changed our personality a little bit, but we were not responding at the level I thought we had in our decision-making the first 12 or 14 minutes of that half."

The second half did not fare well for K-State. During the first 10 minutes of play, the Wildcats only put 6 points on the board, while Baylor put away 20.

Griner made a difference on both the offensive and defensive ends of the court for the Bears as she closed the game with 29 points and 9 rebounds.

Junior guard Brittany Chambers felt the frustration of playing against a 6-foot-8-inch opponent.

"She can be five feet off of you and you still can't get an open shot off, it's tough," Chambers said.

After falling 29 points behind Baylor, the game came to a close for the Wildcats. They now hold a 6-4 record in Big 12 Conference play while Baylor sits at 10-0, an obvious No. 1 position.

The support of the sold-out arena did not go unnoticed by the Wildcats, who do not often see such a large crowd.

"It was unbelievable. I've never played before a crowd at home this big, and they showed us a lot of support the whole game," Chambers said about the 12,528 people in attendance. "We're very grateful for them to come out and support us. It definitely brought a lot of energy for us in the beginning; I wish we would have performed better for them."

The Wildcats were not the only ones who noticed the big crowd — the Bears were also excited to play in a full Bramlage Coliseum.

"I want you to take this the right way, because we love great crowds, but Debbie [Patterson] has a top-25 team out there, they're in and out of it, and you shouldn't have to sell dollar tickets to get [fans] in the arena," said Baylor head coach Kim Mulkey. "I have that much respect for her program. It was a great atmosphere and I thank all the fans for coming out, but they don't need to just be here tonight, they need to be supporting their team every night."

K-State will hit the road as they look to take on Texas A&M on Wednesday evening in College Station, Texas, at 7.

"We've got more games to play and we can't think about this," Childs said. "We have to learn from it, but we can't go into a game thinking, ‘we just lost by 30.' It's not what your thought process is. We've got more games to play. We're thinking about the NCAA tournament — we've got to think ‘win' every single game."

Corbin McGuire staff writer

The Drive: Eli Manning and the Giants, down 15-17, marched down the field 88 yards in 2:49, giving Ahmad Bradshaw the opportunity to run 6 yards for a touchdown. The Giants were up 4 points after they failed on their 2-point conversion.

With 57 seconds remaining, Tom Brady was unable come up with a heroic ending. He drove the Patriots 29 yards but could not complete a last-second attempt in the end zone, falling to the Giants for the second time in his Super Bowl career.

The Game: The Patriots opened up the game by holding the Giants to a punt, where Steve Weatherford punted the ball to the Patriot 6-yard line.

Brady opened the Patriot offense with a safety on an intentional grounding penalty that gave the Giants their first points of the game.

The Giants followed the safety with a 78-yard touchdown drive to put the Giants up 9-0 that ended with a 2-yard Victor Cruz touchdown.

The Patriots owned the second quarter, scoring 10 unanswered points that consisted of a 10-play, 60-yard drive that ended in a 29-yard Stephen Gostkowski field goal.